World Rehearsal Court is a multi-media installation in two parts by Judy Radul. The exhibition is the result of two years of research into the International Criminal Court and explores the role of video and surveillance media in the court room. Radul is interested in the role of theatricality in representations that take place or are staged in and by the court. She explores the tensions between experience, testimony, truth, and fiction that the court attempts to make distinct.
In one gallery, a seven-channel video presents re-enactments of court room scenes using the trial transcripts of International Criminal Tribunals (ICT), specifically the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the ICT for the former Yugoslavia. Radul traveled to The Hague and observed both trials. The seven-channel piece was taped using an apparatus that alternately focuses on the main actors in the trial and the location (a school gymnasium) where Radul staged the re-enactment.
In the other galleries, Radul has created a surveilled environment with live-feed from four cameras in the rooms. Plinths and shelves contain ‘evidence.’ As the viewer wanders through these spaces, they are captured in the field of the cameras. The viewer is invited to experience two spaces at once as two banks of monitors, separated by a wall, reveal that the cameras construct a space rather different than the space experienced in actuality—a point made acute by the Ramachandran Mirror Box, which the viewer is invited to use in the evidence room. The doubling that occurs in the mirror box is metaphorically enacted in the gallery hallway.
World Rehearsal Court is a laboratory and experiment in the spatial dynamics of a courtroom and an art gallery.
An extensive online catalog with photos and video can be found at worldrehearsalcourt.com
Judy Radul, World Rehearsal Court, 2009, 7 channel video installation, running time 4 hours; 4 servo-controlled cameras, live camera position playback system, monitors, dolly, track, found and built objects, plexiglass, dimensions variable